Revolutions in Egypt and Israel

The revolt of Jehu, whose horses tread the dead body
of Jezebel, thrown out of a window of the palace in Jezreel (Gubla),
was a signal for a change not just in religious allegiance, but equally
so in political orientation. The palace revolution in Egypt and the
lowering of Egypts standing in international politics prompted
Jehus pro-Assyrian revolt, which met no true opposition in Israel
nor in Judea: at Jezreel he killed the kings of both kingdoms, related
by marriage.

At home Jehu started as a cruel tyrant by eliminating
all the progeny of Ahab in Jezreel and in Samariabaskets full
of heads of the royal sons were carried to him from Samaria; next he
ordered the priests of Baal and his worshippers killed. But against
Hazael, king of Damascus, Jehu proved himself a poor opponent.

While the house of Judah and the house of Israel went
through a series of revolutions and fraternal wars, the Assyrians, who
already in the days of Shalmaneser III towered over other nations of
Western Asia, did not cease their penetration into the region of Syria
and Palestine, the bridge to Egypt and Ethiopia. The Assyrian expansion
which had started under Ashurnasirpal (ca -883 to -859), the father
of Shalmaneser III, took a more aggressive form under Shalmaneser, whose
inroads into Syria, Phoenicia, Israel, and Judah can be read in the
el-Amarna tablets as those of Burraburiash, King of Hatti. At Qarqar
he fought a coalition in which also Ahab of Samaria participated, backed
by a brigade of Egyptian (Musri) troops.

But besides this direct contact with Egyptian troops,
Shalmaneser did not dispatch any military forces past the line Tyre-Qarqar-Damascus,
instead employing local princelings in an effort to disrupt the Egyptian
colonial domain. The rebellion of Mesha, a vassal king of Moab, against
Ahab, the king of Samaria, and the intrusion of desert tribes from across
the Jordan toward Jerusalem in the days of Jehoshaphat resulted from
this disruptive policy, with the king of Damascus changing more than
once his political orientation.

Shalmaneser fought also on several other frontshe
claims to have defeated, among others, Sapalulme of Hattina. We may
identify this Sapalulme with Suppiluliumas, King of Hatti, author of
one, possibly two, el-Amarna lettersa collection of hundreds of
diplomatic missives exchanged between the pharaohs Amenhotep III, and
Akhnaton after him, and the independent kings of Asia Minor and Mesopotamia,
and also the vassal kings of Syria, Phoenicia, Israel, and Judah. As
was shown in the chapters dealing with the letters of el-Amarna, Shalmaneser
of the Assyrian texts is Burraburiash of that correspondence. Burraburiash
wrote insulting letters to Akhnaton and demanded gifts in objects of
gold, ivory, and other objects of art in quantities amounting to a tribute.(1)

On an obelisk Shalmaneser let himself be portrayed in
low relief with his entourage, while a kneeling person kisses the ground
near his feet. The text names the person Jehu, king of Judah. It is
often assumed that the figure represents a messenger of Jehu.

In those days the Lord began to cut Israel short:
and Hazael smote them in all the coasts of Israel.
From the Jordan eastward, all the land of Gilead,
from Aroer, which is by the river Arnon,
even Gilead and Bashan.

At the same time we read in Shalmanesers detailed annals that
he carried on war against Damascus, and though the Assyrian king claimed
victory, from the very fact that Shalmanesers ally Jehu was such
a loser, one would conclude that Hazael was much on the offensive.

Under Jehu and his son Jehoaz, Israel was so oppressed
by Hazael that Jehoaz army was reduced to ten chariots, fifty
horsemen, and ten thousand footmen. Hope of relief came only in the
days of Joash, son of Jehu. The Second Book of Kings gives this vivid
picture:

Now Elisha was fallen sick of the sickness whereof he died. And
Joash the king of Israel came down unto him and wept over his face.
. . . And Elisha said unto him, Take bow and arrows.
And he said to the king of Israel, Put thine hand upon the
bow. And he put his hand upon it: and Elisha put his hands
upon the kings hands. And he said, Open the window eastward.
And he opened it. Then Elisha said, Shoot. And he shot.
And he said, The arrow of the Lords deliverance, and
the arrow of deliverance from Syria.

"And Jehoash slept with his fathers, and was buried in Samaria with
the kings of Israel; and Jeroboam his son reigned in his stead.
The sepulcher of the kings of Israel has not been found, even though
Samaria was excavated.

Joashs son, Jeroboam II, one of the later kings
of Israel and the last of the house of Jehu, reigned forty-one years
in Samaria in the palace built by Omri and Ahab. He restored the
coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain.
After many years of affliction that beset Israel (II Kings
14: 26), the enlargement of the state toward the north (Hamath is a
hundred miles north of Damascus) and toward the south ("sea of the plain
is known today as the Dead Sea), constituted the high point in the history
of Israel, only a few decades before the extinction of the state and
the final eviction of its people from its land.

. . . And all that he [Jeroboam] did and his might
how he warred, and how he recovered Damascus and Hamath . . . are they
not written in the book of Chronicles of the kings of Israel?
(II Kings 14: 28).

The Book of Chronicles incorporated in the Old Testament
is not the book referred to in this and several other passages of the
Book of Kings. It obviously dealt with the records of the Kings of Israel,
whereas the existing Book of Chronicles is a short survey, predominantly
of the events in the Kingdom of Judah. Were it extant, such a record,
especially of the reign of Jeroboam II, who ruled longer and more successfully
than other kings of Israel in the last century of the kingdom, would
now be of inestimable value also for the exact synchronization of the
political history of Israel with that of neighboring countries, Egypt
and others.

References

This tribute was also found near Kalah, the
capital of Shalmaneser. Only a few miles from Kalah, in the early
1950s , a mound was opened, containing Fort Shalmaneser. It
was excavated by Mallowan. In large storage rooms were found ivories
with Egyptian motifs in great profusion; one of the rooms, ninety
feet long, was found filled to the ceiling with objects of art,
mainly ivorythe very objects described in an inventory sent
by Akhnaton to Burraburiash.